Notes, Thoughts, Art, Books and Poetry:
STEPPING ON THE DEVIL’S TAIL — A CRIME NOVEL
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Raul Hernandez is a former newspaper reporter who spent more than three decades at the El Paso Herald-Post, El Paso Times, the Press-Enterprise in Riverside County, and the Ventura County Star, chasing real headlines before turning to crime fiction and dark comedy.
He brings newsroom grit and streetwise bite to every page. When he’s not writing, he runs his federal courthouse website and rows like a man trying to outrun his own deadlines.
SERAPE NOTEBOOK NOVEL CLICK HERE
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The Dead Sea Bar and Grill comedy novel is about tough guys trying to hide tender hearts and painful pasts who get involved in an elaborate scheme to con Arab and other oil barons during the height of the 1977 oil embargo.
BOOK INTRODUCTION:
New York City — 1977.
Oil is tight. Disco thumps through the night. The New York Yankees are fighting their way back to the top.
Frankie “Frankenstein” Finch used to be a contender—until a crooked cop’s bullet shut that dream down. Now he’s mopping floors in a rotting church basement, setting rat traps and dodging the slow collapse of everything around him.
Then Butch Badovich blows in—a pint-size pimp with a loud mouth and a hustler’s instinct—offering Frankie a job as collector and enforcer. It’s not pride. It’s a paycheck.
When a long-shot horse comes in, Butch stumbles into real money—just enough to chase something bigger. Enter Vincent Primello, fresh out of prison with a slick plan to bleed oil-rich marks for nearly a million dollars.
Three desperate men. A 12-year-old shoe-shine kid. A New York model with her own angle.
All in on a con that’s ready to explode.
Too bad two crooked detectives are already circling.
In a city that chews up the weak and spits them out, loyalty comes cheap, greed runs deep, and nobody walks away clean.
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Excerpt from the Dead Sea Bar and Grill Novel:
“All this God-given talent is being pissed away in this shit hole with Pastor Houdini,” said Butch.
“Erasmus. His name is Pastor Erasmus,” said Frankie.
“Whatever. Does the parole board know he opened up another religious crazy house? They shut one down in Jersey, I heard. What a con.” Butch pointed at the tattered poster of Joe Louis that Frank duct-taped on the wall. “I’m offering you better than what Joe ended up with. What do you say?”
“I don’t want to kill anybody unless it’s for a good cause,” Frankie said. “Almost killed Vinnie the Viking. ”
“Yeah, I heard about that. Look, just ease up a little.”
“Maybe I could.”
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The Dead Sea Bar and Grill novel: Click Here
The Dead Sea Bar and Grill Screenplay: Click Here
Dead Sea Bar and Grill Book on Sale at Amazon Books
The Rivera Girls
Screenplay by Raul Hernandez
A comedy script about a father of four daughters and his struggles to navigate the challenges of raising his daughters in the 1980s.
Ricardo has four daughters: Gabriela, Vanessa, Nikki, and Alex. He longs for a son to share his interests in sports and bonding at his “man cave.”
Nikki gets into trouble with her parents for getting a nose piercing and a temporary tattoo without her parents’ permission. This leads to conflict with her strict father, who lays down the law about no
modifications allowed on bodies. No exceptions.
The Rivera Girls Script: Click Here
Wordsmith items on sale at MindsEdgeArt, click here: REDBUBBLE
WORDS
I hold wordsmiths in the highest esteem.
Their craft is a sacred art, casting magical spells that weave tapestries of silver and gold threads. They breathe life into the inanimate, conjuring images and emotions that make us laugh, cry, or simply marvel at their beauty.
The power of their words can lift us to the heavens or plunge us into the depths of despair. Some words linger, stirring our souls and leaving lasting imprints on our heart.
Serape Notebook
“We were overworked, and nobody was getting rich. But it didn’t matter. We stayed because we loved this profession. Loved chasing the stories. Nailing some City Hall asshole for corruption. Now, it’s all about fluff. Entertainment and fluff. Trends and titillation. The passion is gone. It’s left the building. Checked out with Elvis when the corporate assholes checked in.” — The Serape Notebook
Two brothers, Diego Carreon Vega and his older brother, Carlos, growing up in West Texas during the time of the Vietnam War is the setting for the novel, The Serape Notebook.
Diego is a journalist who describes how the war changed his family after his brother Carlos joins the U.S. Army and is sent to Vietnam.
“The Voice”
“A BOYHOOD SUMMER”
EXCERPT FROM SERAPE NOTEBOOK
“The Vietnam War didn’t strut down the barrio with the boldness of some high-stepping drum major in front of a high school marching band going down Main Street.
It did none of that.
It came tapping, gently tapping, on the front door like a magazine salesman with a silly grin and a cheap polyester suit. Uncle Sam was selling a bloody war that would change everything in the barrio and in America.
Before the Vietnam War escalated, life in the barrio was a bright yellow, loose-fitting tuxedo, calmly pacing inside a pair of soft huaraches.
People got married, divorced, worked hard, had kids, planned weddings, and hosted quinceañeras — those rite-of-passage celebrations into womanhood for 15-year-old Mexican girls. Kids cruised late at night.
Pinatas were busted in backyards. Baptismos and old high school rivalries thrived. Treks to go to downtown Juarez after the El Paso bars closed were strong.
Vietnam changed everything.”
The Serape Notebook
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The Dead Sea Bar and Grill novel: Click Here
The Dead Sea Bar and Grill Screenplay: Click Here
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Jack Fuentes, a burned-out newspaper reporter in El Paso, stumbles into a diabolical plot just when he’s about to hand in his resignation and put newsrooms and deadlines in the rearview mirror of his life.
Jack Fuentes, a burned-out newspaper reporter in El Paso, stumbles into a diabolical plot just as he’s about to hand in his resignation and put newsrooms and deadlines in the rearview mirror.
“They say that in Mexico even the devil is packing heat because he’s afraid of the cartels. I don’t know about that. I know about the Mickey Madrid story—and some would argue that Mickey is the devil himself.”
— opening lines of Stepping on the Devil’s Tail
FOR SALE AT AMAZON BOOKS: STEPPING ON THE DEVIL’S TAIL
Excerpt from the book “Stepping on the Devil’s Tail”
“Bogota Bogeymen. Fuck. Bad News.”
“Right. But Fernando and Topo were unusual, freaks of nature in the cartel world, you might say.”
“How so,” I asked.
“On the surface, they looked like a couple of tourists who had just stepped off a Carnival cruise ship.”
“Wolves in sheep’s clothing.”
“Most definitely. Cunning too. Let me put it this way, if there’s a Narco Hall of Fame, they’d be in it and have their faces on trading cards. They’ll kill for fun and profits. They’d kill in front of the Virgin Mary.”
— Stepping on the Devil’s Tail.
THE POETRY OF RAUL HERNANDEZ
Life is like a gleam of light between two eternities.
It comes down to this: who we choose to spend our time with.
Whose hand we hold. Whose heart we reach. The ones who make us laugh until it hurts—and stay when it does. The ones who let us be exactly who we are, and somehow still stick around when we fall short.
They become everything—teachers, lovers, witnesses. The rare few who don’t just hear us, but listen. Who can sense that quiet chill that moves through us when something breaks inside.
In the end, that’s what remains. Not the noise. Not the chase. Just the people we shared it with—the moments that mattered, the long hours that slipped by too fast.
What we leave behind isn’t much more than that—pieces of ourselves, tucked into the hearts of others.
And when it’s finally time…
who’s there?
Whose hand are we holding?
That’ll be all we take as we slip into the silence of forever.
OFTEN
BY RAUL HERNANDEZ
I often find you when the sun is kissing the earth goodbye and shadows are slowly crumbling before my eyes. And in the distance, I see your smile, and within, I feel your presence.